Jump to content

Democracy - We had a good run


Jaime L

Recommended Posts

And every other professional in Atlanta and Charlotte? Charlotte is a large regional banking center, and Atlanta is a very cosmopolitan city.

We even have Cyrano.

Regionalism is ridiculous. No one is better or worse because they live in Alabama or Oregon or New York (etc).

You're barking up the wrong tree here. I could give two tugs of a dead dog's cock for how cosmopolitan various urban centers are in the South. I just know that Southern states hoover up way more money in federal tax revenue than they put in, while maintaining a population that is historically more hostile to federal taxation than any other region in the country. The South would have some hard decisions to make about taxation and civil services (like Colorado Springs recently confronted) if the US did break into regional nations like Tormund suggested, and I imagine a lot of poor Southerners would head to other regions seeking jobs.

Hey, I've got nothing against Southerners. Some of my best friends are Southerners.

You're paying more attention to my crass and half-joking regionalism than you need to.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Regionalism is ridiculous. No one is better or worse because they live in Alabama or Oregon or New York (etc).

Actually you can show that statistically, many regions are more racist, less educated, poorer and a whole host of other things.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is Toronto, Canada, a region where people are more judgemental, or is that just you?

It's judgemental to organize statistics by region now?

How about age? income? race? sex? species?

"I feel comfortable in saying most life on earth is carbon-based"

"Hey now, don't go being judgemental. You'll hurt the feelings of potential silicon-based life."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Shryke,

"Lies, damn lies, and statistics."

Come on, seriously? What does everyone have against the gathering of statistics today?

granted, what statistics to gather and how to present them is pure poiltics, but the numbers themselves are innocent. (and cute and fuzzy and does no one else just want to hug them?)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Come on, seriously? What does everyone have against the gathering of statistics today?

granted, what statistics to gather and how to present them is pure poiltics, but the numbers themselves are innocent. (and cute and fuzzy and does no one else just want to hug them?)

Well, the numbers themselves are also influenced by the questions asked and the manner in which the survey is conducted, but those are just things to be aware of and do not invalidate the idea of statistical data.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Shryke,

No wonder you hate the census.

I don't hate the census. I dislike actions taken by the Feds that exceed their power as set out and limited by the express terms of the U.S. Constitution. Monthly censuses exceed that power. If the Constitution is amended to call for monthly random censuses I'll withdraw my objection.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Shryke,

I don't hate the census. I dislike actions taken by the Feds that exceed their power as set out and limited by the express terms of the U.S. Constitution. Monthly censuses exceed that power. If the Constitution is amended to call for monthly random censuses I'll withdraw my objection.

I was just pointing out that the Census gathers statistical data in order to shape policy. And you really hate statistics, so.......

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Shryke,

I don't hate the census. I dislike actions taken by the Feds that exceed their power as set out and limited by the express terms of the U.S. Constitution. Monthly censuses exceed that power. If the Constitution is amended to call for monthly random censuses I'll withdraw my objection.

I think you're wrong here, and the Supreme Court certainly disagreed with you. See the other thread for details.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Come on, seriously? What does everyone have against the gathering of statistics today?

It's not so much the gathering, but the fact that they can be manipulated by people who aren't good at math.

Why don't they?

I don't know what that was meant to prove. Americans might be disatisfied with health care or the economy as an abstract concept, but the vast majority of us are employed, have access to health care, and don't have to worry about where our next meals are coming from. We might disagree with either political party, or the government, etc. but that doesn't translate well into an animus for the entire concept of representative democracy. I.e. people might dislike President Obama or President Bush, but they don't want to abolish the executive branch; people might dislike Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid, but they don't want to abolish Congress; people might disagree with Citizen's United but they don't want to abolish all courts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's not so much the gathering, but the fact that they can be manipulated by people who aren't good at math.

I don't know what that was meant to prove. Americans might be disatisfied with health care or the economy as an abstract concept, but the vast majority of us are employed, have access to health care, and don't have to worry about where our next meals are coming from. We might disagree with either political party, or the government, etc. but that doesn't translate well into an animus for the entire concept of representative democracy. I.e. people might dislike President Obama or President Bush, but they don't want to abolish the executive branch; people might dislike Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid, but they don't want to abolish Congress; people might disagree with Citizen's United but they don't want to abolish all courts.

Lazy Buggers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know what that was meant to prove. Americans might be disatisfied with health care or the economy as an abstract concept, but the vast majority of us are employed, have access to health care, and don't have to worry about where our next meals are coming from. We might disagree with either political party, or the government, etc. but that doesn't translate well into an animus for the entire concept of representative democracy. I.e. people might dislike President Obama or President Bush, but they don't want to abolish the executive branch; people might dislike Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid, but they don't want to abolish Congress; people might disagree with Citizen's United but they don't want to abolish all courts.

Well said. The alternative to elections is much, much worse. I'm not a fan of the current guy in the White House, but dammit, he won the election so he's the President. I wish the Truthers would STFU and if they don't like this guy, work to defeat him the next time around rather than trying to undo the results of an election. You have to respect the process even when your side loses.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great article on the idiot American mindset at the moment:

Jesus Creeping Christ. This is living embodiment of "Keep your government hands off my medicare."

Listen, a Democracy can't govern children. It just can't. To be a citizen one must both be informed and rational and right now the American People as a collective are neither. But democracy implies a responsibility we no longer seem competent enough to take on. Fortunately this problem will resolve itself. Either we get the autocracy that will treat us like the children we are, one that will tell us, no, we can't eat ice cream every night for dinner ...or we'll get a government that no longer reflects our will because it no longer functions at all. Republicans want government out of our lives, maybe this is their way of getting it. I hope almost hope they get what they wish for. As our current situation demonstrates, the world has a funny way of giving you only and exactly what you deserve.

Well, my response to this is simply that I don't believe that things have EVER been any better. There never was some utopian time when the majority of "the American people" were well-informed rational intellectuals, and there never will be. I would bet that people as a whole are a lot better informed now than they were 100 or even 50 years ago. And somehow our republic has survived in spite of that.

I would be in favor of reforms in the Senate and other institutions to make them work better. But the idea that because a lot of people have human contradictory beliefs and impulses that democracy can't work at all seems to be way overly pessimistic to me. It sure ain't perfect, but I think it's better than the alternatives.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

America is too large and diverse for democracy to function efficiently or well. Either return power to the states and strip the feds of most of their authority, or break the country up. 5 smaller countries should do it.

I'm getting more and more comfortable with this idea.

I keep hoping Gov. Rick Perry of Texas follows through on his now multiple threats to secede from the Union. While it would be a great shame to loose Austin, I could do without most of the rest of the state.

If it did happen, it wouldn't change much, except politically. Texas would have to stay economically and probably militarily bound to the rest of the country. It would be like the Canada/US arrangement, probably even closer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know what that was meant to prove. Americans might be disatisfied with health care or the economy as an abstract concept, but the vast majority of us are employed, have access to health care, and don't have to worry about where our next meals are coming from. We might disagree with either political party, or the government, etc. but that doesn't translate well into an animus for the entire concept of representative democracy. I.e. people might dislike President Obama or President Bush, but they don't want to abolish the executive branch; people might dislike Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid, but they don't want to abolish Congress; people might disagree with Citizen's United but they don't want to abolish all courts.

But one that's the issues. People, like businesses, often think very short term. "I'm employed, I'm healthy, everything is fine. We don't need any sort of reform".

Ignorance is probably the biggest issue with Democracy. And it's kinda funny since Representative Democracy is supposed to solve the issue but in many ways, only makes it worse. Especially due to modern communication technologies.

I mean, we have a Representative Democracy because we know people are ignorant. And it's not Ignorance as in "stupidity" (although there's some of that to be sure) and it's not insulting. It's about Time and Energy and, frankly, Interest. People, you, me, anybody, we're all ignorant about stuff. We don't have the time or energy or inclination to become experts on everything. So we vote for someone who IS supposed to be better informed to do it for us. The same way you hire a lawyer cause fuck if you know anything about the law.

But, of course, this doesn't take into account that Representative Democracy relies, strangely, on the idea that people too ignorant to make the decisions themselves are capable of figuring out who is informed enough to make them for us.

And so it becomes a marketing game. And marketing is nasty business. Humans are terrible at understanding how marketing effects them and at seeing through it's bullshit.

And that's not even touching on the pervasively stupid populist idea that "Common Sense" and "Simple Answers" can solve complex problems.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm pretty down on America's system of government right now. Most democracies suffer the problem that they are run by a "mob mentality". When you compare democracy to capitalism, which is based primarily on performance and merit, you can see that most fortune 500 companies have some of the smartest and best managers rising to the top of the organization. Compare that to politics where that is clearly not the case. I'm not saying that we need MORE corporate control, rather we need a system of government where the best people at governing long term actually govern, not the guy who has the best ad campaign.

As an asside on the regional thing, I think the #1 problem with California right now is not irresponsible spending, rather the unfair bi-cameral system in the US. All large states pay a DISPROPORIANATE amount of federal taxes (Link). If the sissy liberals NE and the West left the union, the US would suffer the same fate as the USSR. Also, if instead of sending money to the federal government, all of "Real America" went to go fuck itself, and the Governator got back our additional 22% of $313B in federal income taxes we paid (2007), it'd easily cover our budget deficit, universal healthcare, and all the pixies and rainbows Californians want. The only reason we don't is that the Senate provides the shitty little rural states disproportionate representation in our government.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To those who think breaking down the Federal government and governing by region is a good idea, just remember we basically already tried it:

Articles of Confed

To those who don't won't to read the Wiki entry, this is what we tried before developing the constitution. States were separate from the federal government and we had huge navies and military forces amassing next to each other, money being printed and becoming practically worthless, and war was brewing. We'd go down in a fiery blaze I guess, but I'd rather try something else.

First 60 percent of Americans believe Congress is corrupt (except their own rep?)--well that's a starting point at least. Our elected officials are corrupt--they are so corrupt they don't even realize they're lying about shit anymore. We do need to reform our federal government, and maybe get our asses kicked by some tyrant dictator for awhile to make us appreciate what we had.

And Obama needs to bitch slap his party for being one of the strongest groups of elected democrats in history, yet they're unable to overcome the 40 percent minority of the Republicans.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...